Vera Zurbrügg is a Swiss artist and researcher based between London and Basel. In 2025, she obtained a PhD for her research Articulated Absences and Silenced Souvenirs: exploring Switzerland’s complicity in the trading of Nazi Gold through a counter-archive from the London College of Communication, University of the Arts London. Her practice challenges dominant narratives to unpack the ideological foundations of historical knowledge production. Employing a counter-archival methodology, she interrogates the 'imaginary status' of the archive to explore its inherent power dynamics and institutional authority. Working with photography, objects and material interventions, she examines notions of mnemonic absence to analyse the impact of state secrecy on collective memory. Vera is a co-founder of RAKE – an award-winning research collective that utilises open-source data to investigate a variety of unseen and obscured elements in society, business, and politics. She is affiliated with the Secrecy, Power and Ignorance Network (SPIN), a collaborative initiative of scholars focusing on the lasting – sometimes violent – implications of deliberate acts of obfuscation, as well as ARCHIVO, a platform dedicated to photography and visual cultures to study their influence on our understanding of the past.
EDUCATION
2020 - 2024 PhD in Art & Design, London College of Communication, University of the Arts, London
2018 - 2019 MA in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography, London College of Communication, University of the Arts, London (Distinction)
2016 Erasmus +, Ravensbourne College, London
2014 - 2017 Bachelor of Arts ZFH in Fine Arts, Zurich University of the Arts, Zurich
2013 - 2014 Foundation Diploma in Art & Design, School of Arts, Basel
EXHIBITIONS / TALKS / WORKSHOPS (selection)
2025
› Artist Talk, Articulated Absences, Gold and Switzerland’s Wartime Neutrality, Secrecy, Power and Ignorance Network (SPIN), online, November
› RAKE Collective, Group exhibition, ExtraLegal, BayArt Gallery, Cardiff UK, October-December
› Workshop + Guest Lecture, MA Transversal Design, HGK, FHNW, Basel CH, October
› Workshop with Mireia Ludevid i Llop, archiving any thing, Antiuniversity Festival, London UK, October
› RAKE Collective, Solo exhibition, Tributaries, SCRAM! x Hypha Studios, London UK, September
› Interactive exhibition installation, Der Greif x Various Others – Bilder auf Reisen / Pictures on a Journey, Hotel Bayerischer Hof Lobby, Munich DE, May
2024
› Library Display, The Admission of Gilt, London College of Communication, London UK, December-January
2022
› Artist talk, Screen Research Forum with Bisan Abu Eisheh, Grand Narratives and Hidden Histories - Archiving the Concealed and Excluded, London College of Communication, online, May
› RAKE Collective, Group exhibition, Fact Fiction Fantasy, Peckham’24, Copeland Gallery, London UK, May
› RAKE Collective, Artist talk, Faces of the State: Photography, Surveillance, and Networks of Control, in conversation with Max Houghton, part of Peckham 24, London UK, May
2021
› RAKE Collective, TNT’21, The Photographers Gallery, London UK, September - May
2020
› RAKE Collective, Collectives Hub, Photofringe, Brighton UK, October
› RAKE Collective, Launch, AMP Gallery, London UK, February
2019
› Postgraduate exhibition, Everything Was Forever, London College of Communication, London UK, November
› Group exhibition, Oscillate, Safehouse 1 & 2, London UK, June
› Group exhibition, Visible Justice, London College of Communication, London UK, March
2018
› Publication, 'Status', Corrupted Files, London UK, January
2017
› Diploma exhibition, Zurich University of the Arts, Zurich CH, June
2016
› Group exhibition, I‘ll Think About It Tonight, Zpatiu, Chisinau MD, March
› Group exhibition, International Showroom, Zurich University of the Arts, Zurich CH, May
› Group exhibition, Shallow Paradise, Dienstgebäude, Zurich CH, June
CONFERENCES / SYMPOSIA (paper presentations)
2025
› Queen’s University Belfast: Centre for Creative Ethnography, Around the Fire: Experiments in Creative Ethnography – Entanglement, online, November
› Memory Studies Association, Beyond Crises: Resilience and (In)stability, Prague CZ, July
› PGR Conference, IR/RELEVANT, King’s College London UK, May
› Autograph X PARSE Journal, Encounters: Art, Power and the Archive, Autograph, London UK
2024
› Global New Voices 2024, Contested/ing (Art) Histories, online, November
› ARCHIVO, Reframing the Archive, online, October
› Peace and Conflict Culture Network, Why Remember?: Reframing Trauma, Sarajevo, BA, July
2023
› Queen Margaret University, Shaking the Archive, Edinburgh, UK
2022
› University of the Arts London, Disrupting Dominance in the Archive, London, UK, June
› Peace and Conflict Culture Network, Why Remember?: Peace, Conflict and Culture, Sarajevo, BA, July